Everyday Beans Podcast - Mostly About Coffee and Other Stuff

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There are three coffee skills I'd call foundational, and none of them are gear. That's the whole episode. Every list like this pivots to a grinder or a kettle inside thirty seconds, and I wanted to say the other thing out loud: the S Tier is the part you can't buy. The first one is your palate, and developing it is less exotic than it sounds. Drink a lot of coffee. Eat a lot of food. Taste the fruit, smell the flowers, see if what the bag says is actually in the cup for you. Write things down, because you will not remember. The second is reading the cup visually, which is watching the bed and the drawdown and letting them give you a hypothesis before your mouth confirms it. I tell the story of a white honey Ethiopian with the slowest drawdown I've seen in a long time, and how long I spent assuming something was wrong with me or my water before I accepted that it was just the way that coffee is.
The third is water awareness, and I mean awareness, not a recipe. Before any of the chemistry, just find out what you're brewing with. A ten dollar TDS meter, then tap against fridge against distilled against spring, and pay attention to what changes. Your cup is more than ninety eight percent water, so it's strange how rarely we look at it. I close on why I think these three together make you a complete coffee person, which is that once you can taste, read and know your water, nobody can hand you a recipe and tell you what your coffee should be. And the most interesting thing I've done in the last month and a half is watch other people arrive at their own answers without any of my help at all.
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For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans

For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com

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I don't go to cafes very often, but when I do, I order the same two things almost every time: a black drip coffee and a macchiato. In this episode, I dig into why I stick to those two drinks even though I love coffee and get genuinely excited by every menu I see. I talk about judging cafe coffee against my own brewing at home, why cafe menus are curated and limited on purpose, and what it means when a shop only really shows you who they are through a small handful of drinks.
I also turn the question on myself, and on you. What does your regular order actually say about what you want from coffee? I get into the insecurity that comes with ordering at an unfamiliar counter, why I'm drawn to the people and the atmosphere as much as the drink itself, and why I can't seem to turn off the analysis even when I want to just be present. If you've ever wondered why you always order the same thing, or felt a little intimidated walking into a specialty cafe, this episode is for you.
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Go deeper than the episode, in the newsletter: https://itsmellsbetterthanittaste.com

For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans

For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com

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Nutty and chocolatey. That is what this Brazilian is to me, and I spent a long time quietly assuming that anybody who tasted something else in the same cup had it wrong. I do not think that anymore, and this episode is me working out why. I talk about the years I spent on light roast, why I moved to medium and dark, and why I still roast lightly roasted coffees to see what is in them. I talk about treating a coffee like something to conquer, and about the mornings it wins and I am still thinking about it at dinner. Somewhere in there I stopped hearing a different tasting note as a mistake and started hearing it as information about the person.
What you will get out of listening is a different way to hold your own palate. I make the case that your palate is not a piece of equipment somebody handed you with the bag. It is built out of everything you have tasted, everything you gave up on, and the food that was around you growing up, which is why one person reaches for baker's chocolate and I reach for dark chocolate on the same cup, and why my descriptors for acidity came out of eating apples with my son. I get into when calibration genuinely matters, why it is not the same thing as being right, and the morning my wife called a coffee extremely fruity through a cup of creamer, which is the moment that took the last of my certainty away. If you have ever second-guessed yourself out loud because your note did not match the bag, this one is for you.
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Go deeper than the episode, in the newsletter: https://itsmellsbetterthanittaste.com

For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans

For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com

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I know my brew ratio down to the gram, but for the longest time I never thought twice about my water's PPM. In this episode I walk through my own slow, sometimes stubborn journey toward actually understanding my water, why I ignored it for so long, and what changed once I finally picked up a ten dollar TDS meter.
I talk about the difference water chemistry makes compared to gear, brewers, and even the coffee itself, why tap water quietly wrecks more cups than we realize, and how I went from testing my water at 155 to 160 PPM with Third Wave Water down to my current sweet spot around 80 PPM using my own mineral profile mix. You'll hear how I dialed in that number through trial, error, and a lot of unglamorous testing, plus a couple of analogies that explain why water gets ignored in coffee content even though it might be the most important variable of all. If your coffee has been inconsistent and you can't figure out why, this one might be the missing piece.
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Go deeper than the episode, in the newsletter: https://itsmellsbetterthanittaste.com

For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans

For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com

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In this episode, I share the personal story behind one of my most cherished coffee brewers - my April Brewer from Copenhagen. This isn't your typical equipment review. Instead, I take you through the adventure of visiting Denmark in 2021, the frustrating yet rewarding journey through Copenhagen's streets with a dying phone, and the determination to find the April Coffee shop rather than simply ordering online. I talk about wandering through unfamiliar neighborhoods, getting lost multiple times, questioning whether I'd make it in time to meet my brother, and ultimately discovering the minimalist shop that reminded me of a tiny Apple store.
By listening to this episode, you'll discover why the story behind your coffee equipment matters more than the gear itself, and why experiences create deeper connections to the tools we use daily. I also share observations about Copenhagen's coffee culture, meeting fellow coffee enthusiasts at the shop, and the valuable lesson that sometimes the journey to acquire something is more meaningful than the thing itself. Whether you're a coffee geek or someone who appreciates the value of intentional experiences over convenience, this episode will inspire you to go on your own coffee adventures and create stories worth remembering.
Support the show
Go deeper than the episode, in the newsletter: https://itsmellsbetterthanittaste.com

For tips, tricks and still trying to figure it out: https://www.youtube.com/@everyday-beans

For good tasty coffee, check us out at: everydaybeans.com